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Alistair Overeem Wants to Fight, Not Waiting for a Title Shot| UFC News

Former Strikeforce and K-1 Grand Prix champion, Alistair Overeem is currently serving his 9 month suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commision due to testing positive for TRT. Overeem’s manager tells mmaweekly radio the Dutch Fighter isn’t taking time to enjoy a long vaction. Overeem is treating the 9 months as a long and hard training camp aimed to make Overeem the best he’s ever been.

“First of all, he would have loved to have had the opportunity to fight for the title, but Alistair is a fighter, and as a fighter he will fight whoever they put in front of him.”

“Reality is, he’s training extraordinarily hard, and whoever gets in front of him is going to meet a completely different Alistair. This guy is just dedicated to rebuilding and rededicating himself.

“He’s in great shape. He’s in better shape now than when he joined us. He’s strong; his cardio is crazy. He’s training with pro football players, a whole team of pro football players. We ran out of people large enough to fend him off, so we put him with a whole pro football team to do cardio,”

“All that’s going to happen is whoever does face him is in a lot of trouble.”

“He wants to come back as soon as he can. We have to wait until the Nevada State Athletic Commission can give him the license, and he’s doing everything he can to live by the letter of the law so that there’s no issue with getting that license when the time comes,”

“He’s going to be ready to fight the second that there’s a fight. He’s not going to need a camp, because he’s never left camp.

The day that he’s allowed to be licensed, if they want him to fight the next day, he’ll be ready.”

45 Responses to “Alistair Overeem Wants to Fight, Not Waiting for a Title Shot| UFC News”

Are football players really the best people to train cardio with? I assume he means American football, which, if that is the case, means he’s training with guys who have to go hard for 20-30 seconds and then get a 30 second break. And they do that for roughly 30 minutes over a 3 hour period. Just seems like there are better options out there…

I agree with you. I don’t know if football players are the ideal people to train with. If you watch football workouts they all just do quick burst workouts. Maybe he’s just doing explosive training with them but doing other aerobic training to go with the anaerobic stuff. But it’s hard to think of a sport that does similar workouts to MMA.

He should fly out to Australia and train with some of our Rugby League players. They go hard, non-stop for 40 minute halves. None of this Quarters bullshit. None of this “Make a 30 second play then spend another minute setting up the next play” bullshit. And if you’ve seen some rugby league players they’re just as big as American Football players too.

American football uses pads Aussies don’t wear pads try having a 120 kilo forward run at u at full speed and u have to stop him once you’ve done that there’s another 120 kilo forward running at you 10 seconds later rugby league is a hard game takes a bit of endurance I say from experience I can’t speak for American football because I’ve never played it don’t know if I’d train league for Mma though different skill sets as far as I know Anderson doesn’t do very much weight training more technical training such as pad/bag work and sparring those people walking in the cage built like a brick shithouse may be compensating for a lack of technical ability. Just my opinion though I could be wrong

American football does have bigger faster guys, but they are very specialized, quick bursts of power and for what they do, you will find some monsters.

I found Rugby to be an infinitely more violent and grueling game. IT is the violence of football with the cardio of soccer. There were more injuries that I saw and since we didn’t wear pads, man do you come home covered in bruises and cuts and scrapes.

What’s wrong with soccer? People tend to bash on soccer becuz they don’t watch it like other people do. The only thing I don’t like about soccer is that they fake getting hit hard just for they can get a red card or a penalty on the opposite team. The rest of it is very good cardio and soccer players have the strongest kicks in the world. Look at Jose also. Their skills are really good if u watch these guys play. European teams and teams from Argentina and brazil are the best skilled players. But anyways, american football players could be good for him too. He’s big, so he needs big guys to compete with

buddy, american nfl players are some of the largest, freakiest, strongest, most explosive men in the world….give them a 2 hour crash course on how to play rugby, and they would embarass every australian rugby player and team out there….its science. As for Reem training with them, it’s definitely all anaerobic workouts

@Mick Sadly they wouldn’t. I love watching American Football, but Rugby guys have better stamina. The reason that NFL players can be larger is that they don’t have to play non-stop for 40 minutes. Rugby players have to sacrifice some size in order to keep up at that pace. That being said some NFL players could make the swap, however the skill set is very different. So yes Rugby players have better stamina, that doesn’t mean NFL players don’t have great cardio, they may train for 30 second bursts, but they also do some mid – long distance work.

That’s a bit harsh chief.
Two hours really?? don’t be silly these blokes have been playing rugby their entire lives it is extremely arrogant to think Americans (or anyone) would only need 2 hours to beat an entire league of Australians new zealanders tongans and samoans at a game they’ve been playing for a century.
Furthermore I can’t remember the year but the Americans came to Australia and was put to them to play a series one game being rugby league the other being nfl the Americans backed out cos there is no use of pads in rugby league so there goes your 2 hour theory.
I’m not disrespecting any sport u have to admire the hard work all athletes put in.
I certainly wouldn’t say it would only take two hours for any cross over athlete to dominate a particular sport that’s just friggin nonsense

That’s a first. A fighter not waiting for a titleshot. That’s what fighters should do instead of waiting around and picking fights like Condit and Renan are doing (Nothing wrong with that from there stand point but as a fan of the sport I’d like to see them fight as often as they can) But from Overeems point of view it makes more sence if he waits for the title, He should get his license in December and that’s after the Cain/JDS fight. Let the winner and Overeem have a 3 month training camp and square them off in March/Early April.

Thats what Anthony Pettis did, then he met Clay Guida.. got sent to the back of the line.. but i do agree, as a fan I like to see the fighters stay active. But with the way things are, sometimes waiting is better.. idk.

I wouldnt look too much into it, hes probably doing it more for the strength training side of it more than cardio.. theres definitly better choices for cardio but im not sure if there are stronger athletes than football players, besides weightlifters and guys like Reem lol

Naw, not a big enough draw for Alistair. Part of me wants to see a rematch with Werdum. They are each 1-1 with each other. Also, Werdum is now 2-0 since returning. There are not many other top ranked heavyweights available right now.

@ Doos: Did some1 say a rematch of dream 5? works for me, as long as Hunt can stay on his feet! if not, well…. it ends exactly the SAME as their first fight. still, i wouldn’t mind seein them square off again.

anyone that says training with NFL players is not good for cardio and longevity has never played football and knows nothing about how these guys train. I have played competitive football and done martial arts my whole life and have friends that play in the NFL. I can assure you, anyone that trains with those guys will out perform a UFC fighter that does not.

On another note, triathlon training is a ridiculous option for these guys that are 6’4, 250/260 pounds. That ignorant statement puts you with every other UFC fan that is uneducated with reality and dosed with a few sprinkles of make believe. Pick a different sport, you don’t belong here.

They are just assuming this because they see it on TV and see they players get a quick rest before everydown so assume they dont have the best cardio.. They probably never read up on Walter Peyton’s cardio regime or Herchel Walkers or even someone like Ray Lewis(just to name a few).. Go look at their cardio, strength n condition workouts and tell me they aren’t the best to train for cardio..

Training for an event that focuses entirely on cardio training is somehow ridiculous for someone who needs cardio training? Mind you there is a huge difference between being able to compete in a triathlon at a professional level and training for a triathlon. Ease up prick.

+1 he didnt test positive for PED’s
he test failed due to having unusually high testosterone levels that couldnt be accounted for. they found the drug he used after AO got in contact with his doctor once finding out he failed

that said, we all know he roids

this writer doesnt have a clue what a sted/ped/trt/testo is and should be axed as hes chatting rubbish

I wish i could believe that hes actually a clean fighter but i just cant. Either way i hope JDS knocks him out cold when they eventually get locked in the cage together. Should be an awesome fight, cantwait for it to happen

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